Resource management method and system thereof

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a resource management method and system thereof. The resource management method includes: judging whether the variation degree of work state of a communication system will result in the change of resource management information of the communication system or not, if so, then the resource management information is re-collected, wherein the resource management information includes the state, the interference state among links and service stream information relating to each node in the communication system; and determining the resource allocation strategy of the communication system according to the resource management information.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.16/408,491, filed May 10, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 15/669,011, filed Aug. 4, 2017 (now U.S. Pat. No.10,333,684), which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/220,553, filed Jul. 27, 2016 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,762,373), which isa continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/806,005, filed Jul. 22,2015 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,419,773), which is continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 14/062,640, filed Oct. 24, 2013 (now U.S. Pat. No.9,130,732), which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.13/509,137, filed May 10, 2012 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,654,275), which is aNational Stage Application of PCT/CN2010/078767, filed Nov. 16, 2010,and is further based upon, and claims the benefit of priority fromChinese Patent Application No. 200910224762.9, filed Nov. 17, 2009, theentirety of each of which are incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD

The disclosure relates to communication field, and particularly, to aresource management method and system in a communication system.

BACKGROUND

Resource management and sharing in communication system are attractingmuch attention. The so called resources may include the time domainresources, the frequency domain resources, and the code domain resourcesand the like in the communication system. In the conventional,stationary spectrum resource allocation and utilization rules proposedby the organizations such as Federal Communications Commission (FCC),spectrum resources are divided into multiple frequency bands which areallocated to the operators exclusively. This makes the utilization rateof the spectrum resources very low.

Open Spectrum Access (OSA) is proposed to solve the issue of lowutilization rate of the stationary spectrum resource. In an openspectrum access system, an unlicensed user may use the idle resources inthe frequency band to transmit data in the case that it does not affectthe licensed users, thereby improving the utilization rate of thespectrum resource.

The patent application publication No. CN101141771A provides a radioresource management system and method for realizing spectrum sharing.The resource management system disclosed in this application iscentralized, and includes: an co-operation control unit for determininga spectrum sharing and processing policy based on a spectrum sharingrequest of an access network and/or statistic information of theoperation of the access networks and the utilization of spectrum; anaccess network spectrum sharing control unit which is connected with theco-operation control unit and is for coordinating the local radioresource management of different access networks based on the spectrumsharing and processing policy determined by the co-operation controlunit so that the access networks share the spectrum resources. Theapplication provides a method for sharing spectrum between differentradio access technologies and radio access networks.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in orderto provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. Thissummary is not an exhaustive overview of the disclosure. It is notintended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure or todelineate the scope of the disclosure. Its sole purpose is to presentsome concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detaileddescription that is discussed later.

According to an aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a resourcemanagement method in a communication system. The resource managementmethod may include: judging whether a operating status variation of thecommunication system causes resource management information of thecommunication system to change, and if yes, re-collecting the resourcemanagement information, wherein the resource management informationcomprises information regarding statuses of nodes, interference statusesbetween links and traffic flows in the communication system; anddetermining a resource allocation policy for the communication systemaccording to the resource management information.

According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided aresource management system in a communication system. The resourcemanagement system may include: a status query apparatus, an informationcollecting apparatus and an allocation policy deciding apparatus, andwherein the status query apparatus is configured to judge whether aoperating status variation of the communication system causes resourcemanagement information of the communication system to change, and ifyes, instruct the information collecting apparatus to re-collect theresource management information; the information collecting apparatus isconfigured to re-collect the resource management information accordingto an instruction from the status query apparatus, wherein the resourcemanagement information comprises information regarding statues of nodes,interference statues between links and traffic flows in thecommunication system; and the allocation policy deciding apparatus isconfigured to determine a resource allocation policy for thecommunication system according to the resource management information.

According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided amethod of determining a resource allocation policy of a communicationsystem according to the resource management information of thecommunication system. The method may include: establishing a quantizedrelation between the resource management information of thecommunication system and the resource allocation target; determining theresource allocation policy according to the established quantizedrelation. According to an embodiment, the step of establishing thequantized relation between the resource management information and theresource allocation target includes: establishing a resource allocationmodel according to the resource management information, wherein theresource allocation model reflects neighborhood relations between thelinks, mutual exclusion relations between the links, and bandwidthrequirement and priority level of each link in the communication system;and establishing a constrained condition for resource allocationaccording to the resource allocation model, and quantizing the resourceallocation target. According to an embodiment, the step of determiningthe resource allocation policy according to the established quantizedrelation includes: arranging an order for links in the resourceallocation model, and selecting links that can be allocated withresources simultaneously therein; and allocating resources for each ofthe selected links according to the constrained condition for resourceallocation and the quantized resource allocation target.

According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided amethod of determining a resource allocation mechanism in a communicationsystem. The method may include: performing a statistic of traffic loadof the communication system; and selecting a resource allocationmechanism for implementing the resource allocation policy according tothe traffic load. According to an embodiment, the step of selecting theresource allocation mechanism for implementing the resource allocationpolicy according to the traffic load includes: judging whether thecommunication system is in a light-load status or a heavy-load statusaccording to the traffic load; and in the case of the light-load status,selecting a centralized resource allocation mechanism as the resourceallocation mechanism, and in the case of the heavy-load status,selecting a distributed resource allocation mechanism as the resourceallocation mechanism. In the centralized resource allocation mechanismresources of the communication system are allocated centrally by a maincontrol node of the communication system; and in the distributedresource allocation mechanism multiple nodes of the communication systemserve as regional decision-making nodes, each of which allocatesresources of a region, where the regional decision-making node islocated, in entire coverage of the communication system.

According to an aspect of the disclosure, there is provided anallocation policy deciding apparatus of determining the resourceallocation policy in the communication system. The apparatus includes:an information transforming unit configured to establish a quantizedrelation between the resource management information and a resourceallocation target; and a determining unit configured to determine theresource allocation policy according to the established quantizedrelation. According to an embodiment, the information transforming unitis configured to establish a resource allocation model according to theresource management information, wherein the resource allocation modelreflects neighborhood relations between the links, mutual exclusionrelations between the links, and bandwidth requirement and prioritylevel of each link in the communication system; and establish aconstrained condition for resource allocation according to the resourceallocation model, and quantize the resource allocation target. Accordingto an embodiment, the determining unit is further configured to arrangean order for links in the resource allocation model, and select linksthat can be allocated with resources simultaneously therein; andallocate resources for each of the selected links according to theconstrained condition for resource allocation and the quantized resourceallocation target.

According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided anallocation mechanism controlling apparatus for determining the resourceallocation mechanism in the communication system. The allocationmechanism controlling apparatus includes a statistic unit and aselecting unit. The statistic unit is configured to perform a statisticof traffic load of the communication system; and the selecting unit isconfigured to select a resource allocation mechanism for implementingthe resource allocation policy according to the traffic load. Accordingto an embodiment, the selecting unit is further configured to judgewhether the communication system is in a light-load status or aheavy-load status according to the traffic load; and in the case of thelight-load status, select a centralized resource allocation mechanism asthe resource allocation mechanism, and in the case of the heavy-loadstatus, select a distributed resource allocation mechanism as theresource allocation mechanism. In the centralized resource allocationmechanism resources of the communication system are allocated centrallyby a main control node of the communication system; and in thedistributed resource allocation mechanism multiple nodes of thecommunication system serve as regional decision-making nodes, each ofwhich allocates resources of a region, where the regionaldecision-making node is located, in entire coverage of the communicationsystem.

In addition, some embodiments of the disclosure further provide computerprogram for realizing the above method.

Further, some embodiments of the disclosure further provide computerprogram products in at least the form of computer-readable medium, uponwhich computer program codes for realizing the above method arerecorded.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the embodimentsof the disclosure can be better understood with reference to thedescription given below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings,throughout which identical or like components are denoted by identicalor like reference signs. In addition the components shown in thedrawings are merely to illustrate the principle of the disclosure. Inthe drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a scenario towhich the embodiments of the disclosure may be applied;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating another example of a scenarioto which the embodiments of the disclosure may be applied theembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the method of determining aresource allocation policy in the communication system according to anembodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart illustrating according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure the method of determining a resourceallocation policy in the communication system;

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a method of determining aresource allocation policy in the communication system according toanother embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 11 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the method of selecting aresource allocation mechanism of the communication system according toan embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 12 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the method of selecting aresource allocation mechanism of the communication system according toanother embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 13 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram illustrating an information collectionobject for collecting resource management information for thecommunication system shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 15 is a schematic flowchart of collecting the information ofinterference statuses between links in a communication system;

FIG. 16 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a process of collectingthe information regarding traffic flows in a communication system;

FIG. 17 shows an example of clustering the links in the communicationsystem having the structure shown in FIG. 14;

FIG. 18A shows a step in an example process of establishing a resourceapplication model based on the resource management information by usingthe method of graph theory;

FIG. 18B shows a step in an example process of establishing a resourceapplication model based on the resource management information by usingthe method of graph theory;

FIG. 18C shows a step in an example process of establishing a resourceapplication model based on the resource management information by usingthe method of graph theory;

FIG. 19 shows an example of a flow of determining a resource allocationpolicy based on the quantized relation between the resource managementinformation and the resource allocation target in the communicationsystem;

FIG. 20 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 21 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 22 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 23 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the allocation policydeciding apparatus according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 24 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the allocation policydeciding apparatus according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 25 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the allocationmechanism controlling apparatus according to an embodiment of thedisclosure;

FIG. 26 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 27 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 28 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure; and

FIG. 29 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the resourcemanagement system according to another embodiment of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some embodiments of the present disclosure will be described inconjunction with the accompanying drawings hereinafter. It should benoted that the elements and/or features shown in a drawing or disclosedin an embodiments may be combined with the elements and/or featuresshown in one or more other drawing or embodiments. It should be furthernoted that some details regarding some components and/or processesirrelevant to the disclosure or well known in the art are omitted forthe sake of clarity and conciseness.

Some embodiments of the disclosure provide methods, apparatuses andsystems for resource sharing and management in a communication system toensure the effective utilization of the system resources, such asspectrum resources. The so called resources may include the time domainresources, the frequency domain resources, the code domain resources orany combination thereof.

The method and system according to embodiments of the disclosure may beapplied to any communication system having the features of open spectrumaccess. FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show examples of such communication systems.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a communication system to which the methodand apparatus of the embodiments of the disclosure may be applied. Thecommunication system shown in FIG. 1 is of open spectrum access andincludes two types of network system; the first type is a primary systemnetwork 101. The primary system network 101 owns absolute priority ofutilizing the operation frequency band thereof. The user of this systemis called as Primary User (PU). The second type is the Secondary Systemnetwork 102, which covers a part or whole of the region covered byprimary system. The user of eh secondary system network is called asSecondary User (SU). When the secondary system 102 and the primarysystem 101 simultaneously utilize the same radio resources, the primarysystem 101 will be interfered. Therefore, the rule of resource sharingin the open spectrum access system may include the following: thesecondary system 102 is allowed to use the idle resources among theresources such as the frequency band in the primary system 101 for datatransmission only when the primary system 101 is not interfered. Theprimary system 101 includes two types of nodes: i.e. Base Station (BS)and primary user (PU). A base station is connected to a backbonenetwork, and provides service of accessing the core network for theprimary users. The secondary system 102 may be any type of communicationsystem, such as: a self-organizing network (Ad Hoc) including secondaryusers, a Mesh Network including routers and secondary users, or a localarea network including Access Points (AP) and secondary uses, or anyappropriate communication system, and the disclosure should not belimited to any of the examples. In addition, in the communication systemmay further include one or more secondary systems. In the embodiments ofthe disclosure the number, type and scale of the secondary systems arenot limited. In other words, one or more secondary systems 102 ofdifferent types and different scales may co-exist within the scopeaffecting the primary system 101.

FIG. 2 shows another example of a communication system to which themethod and apparatus of the embodiments of the disclosure can beapplied. The communication system shown in FIG. 2 is also of openspectrum access and includes a primary system and a secondary system.Different from the primary system in FIG. 1, the primary system 201shown in FIG. 2 is a relay network, such as Multihop Wireless RelayNetwork. As shown in FIG. 2, the relay network 201 includes 3 types ofnodes, i.e. base station, relay station (RS) and primary user. The basestation is connected to a backbone network, and provides service ofaccessing the core network for the primary users. The relay station mayinclude one or more stages for forwarding signals wirelessly between thebase station and the primary users. Embodiments of the disclosure may beapplied to the open spectrum access system shown in FIG. 2, and thestage number, the number, the locations, and whether to have mobilityregarding the relay stations in the primary system are not limited.Similar to the secondary system 102 shown in FIG. 1, the secondarysystem 202 may also be an Ad Hoc network, a Mesh network, a local areanetwork, or any appropriate network, and the disclosure should not belimited to any of the examples.

FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show examples of the communication system of openspectrum access, to which the methods, systems, and apparatusesaccording to embodiments of the disclosure may be applied. It should benoted that the examples are illustrative, rather than exhaustive. Thedisclosure should not be considered to be limited to the above thecommunication systems. The methods and apparatuses according toembodiments of the disclosure can also be applied to other communicationsystems which require dynamic allocation and management of the systemresources, the description of which is not detailed herein.

FIG. 3 illustrates a resource management method in a communicationsystem according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 3, the resource management method may include stepsS302, S304 and S306.

In step S302, it is judged whether an operating status variation of thecommunication system affects resource management information of thecommunication system. That is, it is judged that whether the resourcemanagement information of the communication system needs to berecollected according to the degree of the variation of the operationstatuses of the communication system. If yes, the resource managementinformation is re-collected in step S304. Otherwise, the resourcemanagement information is not re-collected and in this case thepreviously collected or saved resource management information isemployed. In step S306, a resource allocation policy for thecommunication system is determined according to the resource managementinformation.

The resource management information refers to the information that iscapable of affecting the management of resources and the deciding ofallocation policy of the communication system.

In the embodiment as shown in FIG. 3, during the collection (e.g.analysis/statistic/measurement) of the information necessary forresource allocation, the policy of information collection may be adaptedto fit the degree of variation in the operation statuses of thecommunication system. In this way, the system cost in informationcollection can be decreased effectively.

As an example, the resource management information may be classified as3 types: information regarding the basic architecture of the system andstatuses thereof (that is, statuses of nodes); information regardingmutual exclusion relation between radio links (that is, interferencestatuses between links) and information regarding the user trafficflows. In other words, the resource management information may include,but not limited to, information regarding statuses of nodes,interference statuses between links and traffic flows in thecommunication system.

Table 1 shows an example of resource management information of thecommunication system shown in FIG. 2. As shown in Table 1, the resourcemanagement information of the communication system may includeinformation such as network statuses of the primary system, statuses ofthe primary user, network statuses of the secondary system and statusesof the secondary user, and the like.

TABLE 1 Example of the resource management information of thecommunication system Resource Management Information network statuses ofLinks connecting BS, RS and statuses of the links; primary system Powerconsumption control statuses of BS, RS; Moving statuses (movingvelocity/direction, etc.) of RS; Working statuses(working/idle/sleeping, etc.) of RS. Statuses of primary Identifier(Numbering) of B S, RS directing serving primary user; user Movingstatuses (moving velocity/direction, etc.) of primary user; Workingstatuses (working/idle/sleeping, etc.) of primary user; Trafficconnection statuses (connection types and QoS parameters, etc.) ofprimary user. network statuses of For Ad Hoc network: number ofsecondary users and connection secondary system statuses of secondaryusers; For Mesh network: link statuses of backbone network includingrouters, number of secondary users and connection statuses betweensecondary users and backbone network, etc.; For local area network:number of users, etc. statuses of secondary Moving statuses (movingvelocity/direction, etc.) of secondary user; user Operating statuses(working/idle/sleeping, etc.) of secondary user; Traffic connectionstatuses (connection types and QoS parameters, etc.) of secondary user.

It should be noted that, the resource management information shown inTable 1 is merely illustrative, and the disclosure should not beconsidered as being limited to this. As can be appreciated by thoseskilled in the art, the content of the resource management informationwhich affects the resource management and allocation policy may bedetermined based on the practical application and requirements, thedescription of which is not detailed herein.

Whether the degree of operating status variation of the communicationsystem affects the information necessary for resource management policy(that is, whether the resource management information needs to bere-collected) may be determined by using various methods. As an example,if the operating status variation of the communication system relates toonly a local area, only the resource management information associatedwith the local area needs to be re-collected, while the resourcemanagement information associated with other areas may remain aspreviously collected or saved information. As another example, if thevariation of the communication system relates to only part of workingstatuses thereof (e.g. interference status between links or statuses oftraffic flows), only the information associated with this part ofworking statuses is re-collected. For example, the movement of a primaryuser node will cause the mutual exclusion relation between linksconnecting the node and other nodes to change, while the traffic flowsremain unchanged. In this case, only the information associated with themutual exclusion relation between related links is re-collected, whilethe information of traffic flows related to this node may use thepreviously collected or saved information. For another example, when thetraffic flow between a primary user node and other nodes changes whilethe interference relationship between the links remains unchanged, onlythe information of the traffic flows associated with the primary usernode is re-collected, and it is not necessary to re-collect theinformation of mutual exclusion relation between links associated withthe primary user node.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic flow chart of the resource management methodaccording to another embodiment of the disclosure. The resourcemanagement method shown in FIG. 4 includes steps S402, S404-1, S404-2and S406.

In S402, when the operating statuses of the communication system change,it is judged whether the change affects the interference statusesbetween links and traffic flows in the communication system.

If the operating status variation of the communication system affectsthe interference statuses between links in the communication system, itis determined that the information regarding the interference statusesbetween links needs to be re-collected, and in step S404-1 theinformation regarding the interference statuses between links isre-collected.

If the operating status variation of the communication system causes thetraffic flows of the communication system to change, it is determinedthat the information regarding the traffic flows needs to bere-collected, and in step S404-2 the information regarding the trafficflows is re-collected.

If the operating status variation of the communication system affectsneither the interference statuses between links in the communicationsystem nor the traffic flows of the communication system, it isdetermined that the system management information needs not to bere-collected. In other words, in this case the resource managementinformation needs not to be re-collected, and the previously collectedor saved resource management information may be used.

Step SS406 similar to step S306 shown in FIG. 3, the description ofwhich is not repeated.

Similar to the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, in the embodiment of FIG. 4the policy of collecting information may be adaptively adjustedaccording to the degree of operating status variation of thecommunication system, so that the system cost for information collectionmay be decreased significantly. Particularly, whether the resourcemanagement information needs to be re-collected and which resourcemanagement information needs to be re-collected may be determinedaccording to the degree of variation in various operating statuses (e.g.changes in the mutual exclusion relation between links between somenodes and traffic flows of some nodes, and the like) in the areas of thecommunication system (In the example of FIG. 21 the informationregarding the mutual exclusion relation between links is re-collected,or the information regarding traffic flows is recollected, or both arere-collected).

For further illustrating the collection of the resource managementinformation, FIG. 14 shows the object of information collection for thecommunication system in FIG. 2.

In FIG. 14, symbols B, R, P, and S represent nodes in the communicationsystem, respectively. B, R and P represent the base station, the relaystation and the primary user node in the primary system network,respectively; and S represents the secondary user node in the secondarysystem network. The subscript of the symbol B/P representing basestation/relay station node represents the numbering thereof. Thesubscript of the symbol P representing primary user node denotes thenumbering of the base station/relay station directly serving it, and theupper script represents the numbering of this primary user node P amongall the primary user nodes that are served directly by the basestation/relay station. The subscript of the symbol S representing thesecondary user node denotes the numbering of the secondary system towhich the secondary user belongs, and the upper script denotes thenumbering of this secondary user node S among all the secondary users inthe secondary system. The directional solid lines between the nodesrepresent radio links (for conciseness, only the upper links of theprimary system network and links in an arbitrary direction in thesecondary system are used as identification). The nodes and the radiolinks therebetween constitute the basic architecture of thecommunication system.

The dotted lines in FIG. 14 denote the interference statuses betweenlinks, i.e. the mutual exclusion relation between links. Two radio linksbetween which there is mutual exclusion relation (i.e. the links aredisjointed) can not simultaneously utilize the same radio resource.

As an example, the mutual exclusion relation between links may beclassified as 3 types. In FIG. 14, the 3 types of mutual exclusionrelation are denoted by the numerical 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The1^(st) type of mutual exclusion relation means that a node can notsimultaneously receive different signals from multiple sources, or cannot simultaneously transmit different signals to multiple targets. Thisrestriction does not hold for the nodes configured with multipleantennas. The 2^(nd) type of mutual exclusion relation means that a nodecan not simultaneously receive and transmit. This restriction does nothold for the nodes configured with multiple transceivers. The 3^(rd)type of mutual exclusion relation refers to that the co-channelinterference exist between two radio links, wherein the co-channelinterference phenomenon is due to the overlapping of the coverages ofsignals while neither the source nodes nor the destination nodes of thetwo links are the same.

The architecture and link statuses and the like of the primary systemnetwork (e.g. the relay network) and various types of secondary systemnetwork are established, maintained and managed by the systemsthemselves. For the detailed process of this, please refer to therelated documents, the description of which is not detailed herein.Therefore, the information regarding the architecture and link statusesmay be obtained from related devices in the primary system network andthe secondary system networks, such as the base station shown in FIG. 1or FIG. 2, the user in self-organizing network, the router or user inMesh network, or the access point (AP) in local area network, or thelike, the description of which is not detailed herein. Some resourcemanagement information, such as the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) types of mutualexclusion relation to be described below or the like, may be obtained byperforming analysis and statistic to the information regarding thearchitecture and link statuses.

FIG. 15 and FIG. 16 show examples of the method of collecting theresource management information. FIG. 15 illustrates an example of themethod of collecting the information of interference statuses betweenlinks.

As shown in FIG. 15, the method may include steps S1504-1, S1504-3 andS1504-5. Optionally, the method may further include step S1504-2.

In step S1504-1, the measurement mechanism is selected according to thedegree of variation in the interference statuses between links of thecommunication system. When the overall architecture of the communicationsystem changes so that most of the links change or when thecommunication system is established, the exclusive time measurementmechanism may be used. When only a local area in the communicationsystem changes so that only the interference statuses between the linksof this area change, the data transmission process measurement mechanismmay be used.

In the exclusive time measurement mechanism, the communication systemallocates special time for measuring the mutual exclusion relation (i.e.the interference relationship) between links. During this special time,no data transmission is performed.

In the data transmission process measurement mechanism, when the mutualexclusion relation between links in a local area of the communicationsystem changes, the related nodes in the communication system measures,during data transmission, the links via which the data transmission isperformed and whose statuses change in the local area. These relatednodes may be the nodes whose coverages overlap with that of the linkswhose statuses change in the local area. For example, one or more idlenodes, other than the nodes in communication, in this local area may bechosen as the related nodes. The data transmission process measurementmechanism may be considered as a supplement to the exclusive timemeasurement mechanism.

If the exclusive time measurement mechanism is selected, steps S1504-2,S1504-3 and S1504-5 will be executed. If the data transmission processmeasurement mechanism is chosen, step S1504-5 will be executed.

In step S1504-2, the radio links in the communication system isclustered (also referred to as “clusterized”) into one or more linkclusters.

Generally, there are many nodes (e.g. users) in the communication systemand there are a large amount of radio links between the nodes.Clustering the links is to perform a granularity clustering to theobjects of mutual exclusion relation measurement. Depending on thedistribution and performance requirements of the communication system,the radio links may be clustered by using various polices. In an examplein which the primary system network is a relay network, the simplestclustering method is to classify the base station/relay station (BS/RS)and the nodes directly served by them as one cluster, which is alsoreferred to as natural cluster. Then a natural cluster may be furtherclustered into multiple clusters or multiple natural clusters may beaggregated as one cluster based on the requirements of load equalizationand the like. As another example, the area of a cell may be dividedequally and the radio links belonging to the same part may be consideredas a cluster. Of course, other link clustering method may be used, thedescription of which is not detailed herein. With the secondary systemin the communication system as an example, since the number of thesecondary users is generally small, each link may be used as a cluster.And when the number of the secondary users is large, the links may beclustered by using other clustering method based on the practicalscenarios, the description of which is not detailed herein. FIG. 17shows an example of a result of clustering the links in thecommunication system including the collection objects shown in FIG. 14.In the example, the primary system network of the communication systemis a relay network, and the links are clustered by using the naturalclustering method; while the links in the secondary system are clusteredby using each user link as a cluster. The natural cluster is representedby the link between the base station or the relay station and any of theusers directly served by them. As shown in FIG. 17, a user directlyserved by BS or RS is denoted by a node P having a same subscript. Forexample, the cluster including B0 and the users directly served by B0 isrepresented by the link from P0 to B0.

By clustering the links in the communication system, in the followingmeasurement the link cluster may be used as the unit for analysis andmeasurement of mutual exclusion relation. Further, in the followingresource allocation, resources may be firstly allocated in a coarsegranularity among the link clusters, and then the resources may befurther allocated with a refined granularity among the links in eachlink cluster. By using the link clustering, the calculation amount ofthe analysis and measurement of the resource management information maybe reduced, and the complexity and the system performance may bebalanced effectively during the resource allocation.

Of course, the clustering step S1504-2 is optional.

In addition, when only the operating statuses of a local area in thecommunication system change, the clustering may be not performed. Inthis case, step S1504-5 may be executed directly to measure the 3^(rd)type of mutual exclusion relation.

In step 1504-3, the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) types of mutual exclusion relationare analyzed and measured according to the antenna configuration,transceiver configuration and the like of the nodes in the communicationsystem (these information may be obtained from, for example, the maincontrol device of the primary system and the main control device of thesecondary system, the description of which is not detailed herein). Forexample, if a node is provided with a single receiving or transmittingantenna, it can not simultaneously receive different signals frommultiple resources or can not transmit different signals to multipletargets, thus there is the 1st type of mutual exclusion relation betweenthe links associated with the node. As shown in FIG. 14, in the casethat the node B₀ is provided with one transceiver, the node B₀ can notsimultaneously receive the signals from the relay stations R₁ and R₂.Therefore, there is the 1st type of mutual exclusion relation betweenthe link R₁→B₀ and the link R₂→B₀. For another example, the 2^(nd) typeof mutual exclusion relation represents that a node can not transmit andreceive simultaneously, and the relay station node R₃ (supposing thisnode has a single transceiver) in FIG. 14 can not receive the signalfrom the primary user node P₃ ¹ and transmit a signal to the relaystation node R₁ at the same time. Therefore, there is the 2^(nd) type ofmutual exclusion relation between the links P₃ ¹→R₃ and R₃→R₁. Forconciseness, it is supposed the nodes shown in FIG. 14 each have asingle transceiver. It should be noted that, however, this isillustrative merely. The disclosure should not be limited to this. Inpractice, the nodes (e.g. the base station, the relay station or themobile station, etc.) in the communication system each are provided withmultiple transceivers. For example, if the node B₀ in FIG. 14 isprovided with multiple transceivers, then in the model of FIG. 14multiple links may be from the node B₀. These links may be used insignal transmission between the node B₀ and other nodes, withoutinterference to each other. The mutual exclusion relation between theselinks and other links may be analyzed and measured by using the abovemethod, the description of which is not repeated.

In an example, after the links are clustered (step S1504-2), the 1^(st)and 2^(nd) types of mutual exclusion relation between the clusters maybe defined based on the relationship thereof. It may be analyzed andjudged on whether there are the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) types of mutualexclusion relation between the link clusters based on the configurationinformation of antennas and transceivers of the nodes in the clusters,so as to obtain the information regarding the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) types ofmutual exclusion relation between the link clusters. In addition, the1^(st) and 2^(nd) types of mutual exclusion relation between the linksin each cluster may be obtained based on the configuration informationof antennas and transceivers of the nodes in the cluster.

In another example, in the case that the links are not clustered, it maybe analyzed and judged on whether there are the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) typesof mutual exclusion relation between the nodes in the communicationsystem based on the configuration information of antennas andtransceivers of the nodes, so as to obtain the information regarding the1^(st) and 2^(nd) types of mutual exclusion relation between the links.

In step 1504-5, the 3rd type of mutual exclusion relation between thelinks is analyzed and measured based on whether the signal coverages ofthe links overlap with each other.

If the signal coverages of two links, the source nodes and destinationnodes of which are not the same, overlap with each other and thusco-channel interference is possible, it may be determined that there isthe 3rd type of mutual exclusion relation between the two links. Asshown in FIG. 14, the source nodes and destination nodes of the links P₂¹→R₂ and R₄→R₁ are different from each other, however since the signalcoverages of the two links overlap with each other, there is the 3rdtype of mutual exclusion relation between the two links.

As an example, step S1504-5 may include two sub-steps S1504-51 andS1504-52. In step S1504-51, the links to be measured are selected andthe measure time slots are allocated and broadcast. If only a localarena in the system statuses changes, only the related links need to bemeasured. Thus the links to be measured need to be selected according tothe change in the local area. Then time slots are allocated for thelinks and the allocated time slots are notified to the nodesparticipating in the measurement. As described above, the nodesparticipating in the measurement may be the related nodes that arepossibly affected by the local change, such as one or more idle nodes inthe local area related to the change. For example, it is supposed a usernode P_(x) is newly added in the communication system and the relaystation directly serving the user node is R_(x), then a new link betweenthe two nodes is R_(x)↔P_(x), and the several relay stations adjacent toR_(x) and the user nodes served by them may be considered as thepotential related nodes that possibly interfere with the new link. Whenmeasuring the 3rd type of mutual exclusion relation, the links betweenthe node P_(x) and these related nodes may be selected as links to bemeasured. A measure time slot is allocated for R_(x)↔P_(x), and when themeasure time slot comes, one or more idle nodes of these related nodesmay perform the measurement. In step S1504-52, the nodes participatingin the measurement perform the measurement in the allocated time slot.Particularly, in the allocated time slot, a signal is transmitted via alink under measurement. If the monitored signal reaches a criterion, forexample, if the strength of the monitored signal exceeds a thresholdvalue, it may be determined that the link under measurement interfereswith the data of the node, and thus it can be determined that there isthe 3rd type of mutual exclusion relation between the link undermeasurement and the links of the nodes participating the measurement. Itshould be noted that, the above method of collecting information of the3rd type of mutual exclusion relation is merely illustrative. Thedisclosure is not limited to this. Other appropriate method may be usedto collect the information as required, the description of which is notdetailed herein.

In an example step S1504-1 may be omitted. For example, the exclusivetime measurement mechanism may be used as the default measurementmechanism for analyzing and/or measuring the 1^(st), 2^(nd), and 3^(rd)types of mutual exclusion relation in the communication system. Foranother example, the data transmission process measurement mechanism maybe used as the default measurement mechanism for analyzing and/ormeasuring the 1^(st), 2^(nd), and 3^(rd) types of mutual exclusionrelation.

FIG. 16 shows an example of a method of collecting information oftraffic flows in the case that the radio links are clustered. As shownin FIG. 16, the method includes steps S1604-2 and S1604-4. In stepS1604-2, a statistic of the traffic flows in the clustered links isperformed, that is, a statistic of the traffic flows of each linkcluster is performed. Particularly, the total bandwidth requirements ofeach link cluster may be calculated based on the information regardingthe bandwidth requirements of the related users (which may be obtainedfrom, for example, the main control node in the primary system and themain control node in the secondary system, the description of which isnot detailed herein), so as to obtain the information regarding trafficflows of the link cluster. The sum of the bandwidth requirements of thelinks in a link cluster is the total bandwidth requirements of the linkcluster. In step S1604-4, a statistic of the traffic flows in otherlinks is performed. That is, the bandwidth requirements of thenon-clustered links are calculated. The non-clustered links aregenerally used for data forwarding and their bandwidth requirements arethe amount of bandwidths necessary for the forwarding. For example, thebandwidth required by the link R₁→B₀ in FIG. 17 is equal to the sum ofthe bandwidths necessary for forwarding the data from the links R₃→R₁,R₄→R₁ and P₁→R₁.

In another example, in the case that the links are not clustered, thebandwidth requirement of each link may be calculated based on theinformation of bandwidth requirements of the related users, so as toobtain the information regarding traffic flows in the communicationsystem.

In an example, when only a local area in the communication systemchanges and thus causes the traffic flows of the nodes in the local areato change, only the information regarding traffic flows in this localarea needs to be re-collected.

It should be noted that, the above method of re-collecting the resourcemanagement information is merely illustrative, rather than exhaustive.The disclosure should not be considered as limited to this. The resourcemanagement information of the communication system may be collected byany other appropriate method or technique, the description of which isnot detailed herein.

As an example, the collected resource management information of thecommunication system may be saved in the main control node (e.g. thebase station in the primary system) of the communication system. Asanother example, the collected resource management information of thecommunication system may be saved in a distributed way in other nodes ofthe communication system, e.g. in one or more the relay stations or usernodes with a good calculation capability. Particularly, each of therelay stations or user nodes with a good calculation capability may savethe resource management information of the local area to which it islocated. The resource management information may be stored as requiredby using any appropriate technology, the description of which is notdetailed herein.

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure. The method ofFIG. 5 is similar to that of FIG. 4. The difference lies in that themethod of FIG. 5 further includes a step of clustering the radio linksin the communication system.

As shown in FIG. 5, the resource management method includes steps S502,S504-1, S504-2 and S506, and further includes step S501.

In step S501, the links in the communication system are clustered, toobtain one or more link clusters. The following steps may be performedby using the link cluster as a unit. The links may be clustered by usingthe above method similar to the above examples or embodiments, thedescription of which is not repeated.

Steps S502, S504-1, S504-2 and S506 are similar to steps S402, S404-1,S404-2 and S406 in FIG. 4, the description of which is not repeated.

As a particular example, after the links are clustered, step S504-1 ofre-collecting the information regarding the interference statusesbetween links may include: obtaining the information regarding theinterference statuses between the link clusters and the information ofinterference statuses between links within each of the link clusters.

As another particular example, after the links are clustered, stepS504-2 of re-collecting the information regarding traffic flows mayinclude: obtaining the information regarding the traffic flows in eachof the link clusters.

In addition, in the method of FIG. 5, link clustering step S501 is shownto be executed before step S502. In another example, the link clusteringstep may be executed after step S502 or at other appropriate time, thedescription of which is not detailed herein.

By using the link clustering, the working amount for re-collecting theresource management information may be reduced, thereby decreasing theload of the communication system.

FIG. 6, FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 are schematic flow charts showing the methodof determining a resource allocation policy according to embodiments ofthe disclosure.

The method of FIG. 6, FIG. 7 or FIG. 8 may be used to determine theresource allocation policy of the communication system based on theresource management information of the communication system. Theresource management information herein has the same meaning as describedin the above embodiments and examples and may be collected by using anyof the methods described above, the description of which is notrepeated.

The method of FIG. 6 includes steps S606 and S608. Particularly, in stepS606, the quantized relation between the resource management informationand the resource allocation target of the communication system isestablished. In step S606, the resource allocation policy of thecommunication system is determined based on the quantized relation.

In the embodiment of FIG. 7, the step of establishing the quantizedrelation in FIG. 6 is refined. As shown in FIG. 7, the step ofdetermining the resource allocation policy of the communication systembased on the resource management information may include two sub-stepsS706-1 and S706-2. In step S706-1, a resource allocation model may becreated based on the resource management information. The resourceallocation model may reflect the neighborhood relations between thelinks, mutual exclusion relations between the links, and bandwidthrequirement and priority level of each link in the communication system,and the like. In step S706-2, the resource allocation constraintconditions are established based on the resource allocation model andthe resource allocation target is quantized. Step S708 is similar tostep S608 in FIG. 6, the description of which is not repeated.

In an example, before the step of determining the resource allocationpolicy of the communication system based on the resource managementinformation, the method may further include a step of clustering theradio links the communication system, which is the same as the aboveembodiment, the description of which is not repeated. In the example,the resource allocation model established in step S706-1 may reflect theneighborhood relations between the links, mutual exclusion relationsbetween the links, and bandwidth requirement and priority level of eachlink in the communication system, and the like. By using the linkclustering, the complexity of computation in establishment of theresource allocation model may be reduced.

FIGS. 18A-C shows an example of the process of establishing the resourceallocation model based on the resource management information by usingthe graph theory. As shown in FIGS. 18A-C, the process of establishingthe resource allocation model of the communication system may include 3steps S1801, S1802 and S1803.

In step S1801, a line graph is constructed based on the neighborhoodrelations between the links in the communication system. Forconciseness, the network structure shown in FIG. 17 is used as anexample. T denotes the graph shown in FIG. 17. FIG. 18A shows a linegraph constructed based on the graph of FIG. 17, which is denoted by T′.As shown in FIG. 18A, the vertexes in T′ correspond to the directionalarcs (i.e. the radio links) in T. The arrow of an arc is directed to thehead vertex, and at the other end of arc is the tail vertex of the arc.The links in the primary system network are denoted by hollow dots, andthe links in the secondary system network are denoted by solid dots. Anytwo vertexes in T′ are connected with an arc, if and only if the twovertexes correspond to two neighboring arcs (i.e. the head vertex of oneof the two arcs is the tail vertex of the other one) in T, and thedirection of an arc in T′ is consistent with that of an arc in T towhich the vertexes thereof correspond, and is used to represent the flowdirection of the data. For example, the links R₃→R₁ and R₁→B₀ in FIG. 17are converted into two vertexes R₃R₁ and R₁B₀ in FIG. 18A which areconnected by an arc from R₃R₁ to R₁B₀.

In step S1802, the mutual exclusion relation between links is loaded.Any two vertexes in T′ are connected by a non-directional edge, if andonly if there are the 1^(st), 2^(nd) or 3^(rd) type of mutual exclusionrelation between two arcs in T corresponding to the two vertexes, thusthe graph T″ shown in FIG. 18B is obtained.

In step S1803, the actual bandwidth requirements are loaded. Thevertexes in T″ are weighted, thus forming graph G in FIG. 18C. Theweight of a vertex corresponds to the bandwidth requirement of the arc,corresponding to the vertex, in T, as shown by the values in thevertexes in FIG. 18C. If the actual bandwidth requirements values arenot integers, they may be normalized as integers for the followingoperation.

Graph G may be called as a Hierarchically Weighted Mixed Graph.“Hierarchically” means that the vertexes in graph G has differentpriority levels. For example, in the example there are two prioritylevels, i.e. the primary system and the secondary system, which aredenoted distinguishably by hollow dots and solid dots. “Weighted” meansthat the vertexes in graph G are weighted. “Mixed Graph” means that thevertexes in graph G are connected in two manners, i.e. by usingdirectional arcs and non-directional edges.

By using the method, the resource allocation model of the communicationsystem is established. Some examples of establishing the resourceallocation constraint conditions and quantizing the resource allocationtarget based on the resource allocation model are described below.

By the above resource allocation model, i.e. graph the resource sharingand allocation of the communication system may be mapped as a problem ofmulticoloring graph G, which is also referred to as HierarchicallyWeighted Mixed Graph Multicoloring (HWM²) problem.

For better understanding of the description, some terms and symbols aredescribed first. “∈” denotes “belonging to”, e.g., i, j∈N denotes i, jbelong to the set N; “∃” denotes “exist”, e.g., ∃i∈N denotes there is atleast one element i which belongs to the set N; “∀” denotes “any”, e.g.,∀i∈N denotes any element i in the set N. In the example, N denotes theset of natural numbers, [i . . . j] denotes a part of natural numbers{i, i+1, . . . , j}, wherein i, j∈N and i≤j. |X| denotes the Cardinalityof the set X, i.e. the number of elements in the set. Graph G may denotea quaternion (V, A, E, ω), wherein, V denotes the set of vertexes, Adenotes the set of arcs, E denotes the set of edges, and ω denotes theset of weight values. Based on the priority levels, the set V may bedenoted by a vector (V₁, V₂, . . . , V_(m)), wherein V_(i) denotes theset of vertexes having the ith priority level. i∈[1 . . . m], m denotesthe number of priority levels of the vertexes. ∪_(i∈[1 . . . m])V_(i)=V(That is, the combination of all V_(i) is V) and if i≠j, V_(i)∩V_(j)=ϕ(That is, when i≠j, the intersection of V_(i) and V_(j) is zero). Thepriority level of the vertexes of V_(i) is higher than that of V_(j), ifand only if i<j. The priority level of vertex v may be denoted byr(v)∈[1 . . . m], i.e. v∈V_(r(v)). If the tail vertex of an arc is u E Vand the head vertex is v∈V, the arc may be denoted as (u,v), u may alsobe called as the precedence vertex (of vertex v), v may also be calledas descendance vertex (of vertex u). The set of all the precedencevertexes of the vertex v may be denoted by P(v)={u|u∈V, (u,v)∈A}. Theedge connecting the vertexes u and v may be denoted by [u, v]. Theweights of the vertex v∈V in the set V are denoted by ω_(v).

Generally, multicoloring Ψ of hierarchically weighted mixed graph G is amapping from the set V of graph G to the Power Set 2^(N) of the set N,i.e. Ψ:V→2^(N). The mapping allocates |Ψ(v)|=ω_(v) different numbers ofcolors to each vertex v∈V in the set V, and meets the followingconditions: the sets of colors allocated to two vertexes connected by anedge disjoint, the sets of colors allocated to two vertexes connected byan arc meets the precedence constraint condition and the vertexes havingdifferent priority levels comply with the priority constraint condition.The minimum color allocated to the vertex v is denoted bys_(Ψ)(v)=min{i|i∈Ψ(v)}, and the maximum color allocated to the vertex vis denoted by f_(Ψ)(v)=max{i|i∈Ψ(v)}. The maximum color among the colorsallocated to all the vertexes in the set V is denoted asf_(Ψ)=max{f_(Ψ)(v)|v∈V}.

Like the set of natural numbers, the set of colors is an ordered set andthe numbers of the colors correspond to the natural numbers. In theexample, the color and the natural number have the same meaning and acolor means a corresponding natural number. The coloring process is toallocate the colors in an ascending order. In multicoloring Ψ, thecolors ç∈N are allocated to the set of all vertexes, which is denoted byΓ_(Ψ)(ç)={v|ç∈Ψ(v), v∈V}. It is supposed that a color allocated to v∈Vis ç∈Ψ(v), the set of vertexes which have a priority level higher thanthat of v and belong to the set γ_(Ψ)(ç) may be denoted by Λ_(Ψ)(v,ç)=∪_(j∈[1 . . . r(v)−1])V_(j)∩Γ_(Ψ)(ç); and the set of vertexes whichhave a priority level higher than that of v but do not belong to the setΓ_(Ψ)(ç) may be denoted by Λ _(Ψ)(v,ç)=∪_(j∈[1 . . . r(v)−1])V_(j)−Λ_(Ψ)(ç).

HWM² (The resource sharing and allocation of the communication system)is classified and described below with respect to various constraintconditions and optimizing targets.

I. Establishment of Constraint Conditions

Based on the constraint conditions, HWM² may be classified in 2 aspects.

In one aspect, HWM² may be classified as two types, i.e. Non-preemptiveand Preemptive. In non-preemptive HWM², the colors allocated to any onevertex is consecutive, which, in the sense of resource allocation, meansthat the resource blocks allocated to a link is consecutive in theordered set of resource blocks, or means that a machine node has to workcontinuously until the end of the task once it is scheduled in machinescheduling. In preemptive HWM², the colors allocated to any one vertexmay be non-consecutive, which, in the sense of resource allocation,means that the resource blocks allocated to a link may benon-consecutive, or means that a machine node may pause its operationafter being scheduled and may resume the operation after a while inmachine scheduling.

In the other aspect, HWM² problem may be classified into two typesincluding non-interleaving and interleaving. In non-interleaving HWM²,the minimum color allocated to any one vertex is larger than the maximumcolor of its precedence vertex, which, in the sense of resourceallocation, means that the resource blocks allocated to a link followthe resource blocks allocated to its precedence link within the orderedset of resource blocks, for example, in a relay network a link for relayforwarding can forward data only when it has received data from itsprecedence link; or means that a producing process can be started onlywhen all the objects to be processed have been obtained from itsprecedence process in the pipeline scheduling since the tools orresources needed in the two neighboring processes may be the same. Ininterleaving HWM², among any top ε∈N available colors, the number ofcolors allocated to any one vertex is no lager than the sum of thenumbers of colors allocated to all its precedence vertexes, which, inthe sense of resource allocation, means that the number of resourceblocks allocated to any one link among the top ε resource blocks in theordered set of resource blocks is no lager than the sum of numbers ofresource blocks of all its precedent links. For example, in the relaynetwork the data forwarded at any time by a link responsible forforwarding can only be a sub-set of the data received from its precedentlinks; or means that a producing process may start operation once it hasobtained all the objects to be processed from its precedent process inpipeline scheduling since the tools or resources used in the twoprocesses do not conflict with each other.

Table 2 shows the HWM² problem classified in the above two aspects basedon the constraint conditions:

TABLE 1 HWM² classified based on constraint conditions non-preemptivepreemptive non-interleaving HWM_(npni) ² HWM_(pni) ² interleaving —HWM_(pi) ²

As can be seen from Table 2, HWM² problem may be classified into 3 typesbased on the above 3 types of constraint conditions.

The first type of HWM² may be called as nonpreemptive-noninterleavingHWM², i.e. HWM_(npni) ² in Table 2.

The nonpreemptive-noninterleaving multicoloring HWM_(npni) ² ofhierarchically weighted mixed graph G may be denoted asΨ_(npni):V→2^(N). |Ψ_(npni)(v)|=ω_(v) different colors may be allocatedto each vertex v∈V while the following conditions (1)-(4) are met:

∀v∈V,f _(Ψ) _(npni) (v)=s _(Ψ) _(npni) (v)+(ω_(v)−1)  (1)

f _(Ψ) _(npni) (u)<s _(Ψ) _(npni) (v), if (u,v)∈A  (2)

Ψ_(npni)(u)∩Ψ_(npni)(v)=ϕ, if [u,v]∈E  (3)

∀ç∈Ψ_(npni)(v),∀u∈Λ _(Ψ) _(npni) (v,ç),∃W∈Λ _(Ψ) _(npni)(v,ç),(u,w)∈A,or(w,u)∈A, or [u,w]∈E  (4)

Condition (1) denotes that the maximum color f_(Ψ) _(npni) (v) allocatedto any vertex is equal to the sum of its minimum color s_(Ψ) _(npni) (v)and the number ω_(v) of colors allocated to it minus 1, That is, thecolors allocated to any vertex v is consecutive. Condition (2) denotesthat the maximum color f_(Ψ) _(npni) (u) allocated to the tail vertex uof arc A is less than the minimum color s_(Ψ) _(npni) (v) allocated tothe head vertex v of the arc A. That is, the coloring of any vertex vcan not be started before the end of coloring of its precedencevertex^(u). Condition (3) denotes that the colors allocated to thevertexes v and u connected via an edge disjoint. Condition (4) denotesthat the coloring of any vertex v can not be take precedence of thecoloring of a vertex having a higher priority level.

The 2^(nd) type of HWM² may be as called preemptive-noninterleavingHWM², i.e. HWM_(pni) ² in Table 2.

The preemptive-non-interleaving multicoloring HWM_(pni) ² inhierarchically weighted mixed graph G may be denoted as Ψ_(pni):V→2^(N).|Ψ_(pni)(v)|=ω_(v) different colors are allocated to each vertex and thefollowing conditions (5)-(7) are met:

f _(Ψ) _(pni) (u)<s _(Ψ) _(pni) (v), if (u,v)∈A  (5)

Ψ_(pni)(u)∩Ψ_(pni)(v)=ϕ, if [u,v]∈E  (6)

∀ç∈Ψ_(pni)(v),∀u∈Λ _(Ψ) _(pni) (v,ç),∃w∈Λ _(Ψ) _(pni)(v,ç),(u,w)∈A,or(w,u)∈A, or [u,w]∈E  (7)

f_(Ψ) _(pni) (u) denotes the maximum color allocated to vertex u, s_(Ψ)_(pni) (v) denotes the minimum color allocated to vertex v. Condition(5) denotes that for the vertexes u and v connected via an arc A, themaximum color f_(Ψ) _(pni) (u) allocated to the tail vertex u is lessthan the minimum color s_(Ψ) _(pni) (v) allocated to the head vertex v.That is, the coloring of any vertex v can not be started before the endof the coloring of its precedence vertex u. Condition (6) denotes thecolors allocated to the vertexes v and u connected via an edge disjoint.Condition (7) denotes that the coloring of any vertex v can not be takeprecedence of the coloring of a vertex having a higher priority level.

The 3rd type of HWM² may be called as preemptive-interleaving HWM², i.e.HWM_(pi) ² in Table 2.

The preemptive-interleaving multicoloring HWM_(pi) ² in hierarchicallyweighted mixed graph G may be denoted as Ψ_(pi):V→2^(N).|Ψ_(pi)(v)|=ω_(v) different colors are allocated to each vertex v∈V andthe following conditions (8)-(11) are met:

∀ε∈N,|Ψ _(pi)(v)∩[1 . . . ε]|≤Σ_(u∈P(v)≠0)|Ψ_(pi)(u)∩[1 . . . ε]|  (8)

Ψ_(pi)(u)∩Ψ_(pi)(v)=ϕ, if (u,v)∈A  (9)

Ψ_(pi)(u)∩Ψ_(pi)(v)=ϕ, if [u,v]∈E  (10)

∀ç∈Ψ_(pi)(v),∀u∈Λ _(Ψ) _(pi) (v,ç),∃w∈Λ _(Ψ) _(pi) (v,ç),(u,w)∈A, or(w,u)∈A, or [u,w]∈E  (11)

Condition (8) denotes that the number of colors allocated to any onevertex v among the top ε∈N available colors does not exceed the sum ofnumbers of colors allocated to all its precedence vertexes u∈P(v)Condition (9) denotes the colors allocated to the vertexes v and uconnected via an arc disjoint. Condition (10) denotes the colorsallocated to the vertexes v and u connected via an edge disjoint.Condition (11) denotes that the coloring of any vertex v can not be takeprecedence of the coloring of a vertex having a higher priority level.

II. Quantization of Optimizing Target

The optimizing target of coloring generally is to color with the leastnumber of colors. In the example, a function regarding the maximum colorf_(Ψ)(v) allocated to the vertex v in multicoloring Ψ is designed. Thefunction may be denoted as Θ_(Ψ)(G)=Σ_(v∈V)β_(v)f_(Ψ)(v), wherein β_(v)denotes a coefficient. Depending upon the different optimizing targets,β_(v) may be set differently. In other words, different values of β_(v)reflects different optimizing targets. By setting different values ofβ_(v), an optimizing target can be optimized.

3 examples of setting the coefficient β_(v) based on the optimizingtarget.

In the first example, the coefficient β_(v) is set by using formula(1-1):

$\begin{matrix}{\beta_{v} = \left\{ \begin{matrix}{{{1/}❘{{\Gamma_{\Psi}\left( f_{\Psi} \right)}❘}},} & {f_{\Psi} \in {\Psi(v)}} \\{0,} & {{Others}.}\end{matrix} \right.} & \left( \text{1-1)} \right.\end{matrix}$

In the example, Θ_(Ψ)(G)=|Γ_(Ψ)(f_(Ψ))|·1/|Γ_(Ψ)(f_(Ψ))|·f_(Ψ)=f_(Ψ).The function Θ_(Ψ)(G) obtains the minimum value of the optimizingtarget, that is, the least number of colors needed in multicoloring Ψ ofgraph G The number of colors is called as Weighted Chromatic Number inmulticoloring Ψ, and is denoted by χ_(Ψ)(G). The weighted chromaticnumbers corresponding to the 3 types of multicoloring problems in Table2 may be denoted as: χ_(Ψ) _(npni) (G), χ_(Ψ) _(pni) (G) and χ_(Ψ) _(pi)(G), respectively. The resource allocation scheme corresponding to theoptimizing target can make the throughput of the system to be maximum.In other words, if the optimizing target of resource allocation of thecommunication system is to make the throughput of the system to bemaximum, formula (1-1) may be used to set the coefficient β_(v).

In the second example, formula (1-2) is used to set the coefficientβ_(v):

β_(v)=1/|V|,v∈V  (1-2)

In the example, Θ_(Ψ)(G)=1/|V|·Σ_(v∈V)f_(Ψ)(v). The optimizing target isto make Θ_(Ψ)(G) minimum, that is, to obtain the minimum value of theaverage of the maximum colors allocated to all the vertexes in graph GThe resource allocation scheme corresponding to the optimizing targetcan make the average delay of the links to be minimum. In other words,if the optimizing target of resource allocation of the communicationsystem is to make the average delay of the links to be minimum, formal(1-2) may be used to set the coefficient β_(v).

In the third example, formula (1-3) is used to set the coefficientβ_(v):

β_(v) =g(r(v)),v∈V  (1-3)

In formulae (1-3), g(*) denotes any function. In the example, thevertexes v having the same priority level have the same coefficientβ_(v). For example, for a given priority level i∈[1 . . . m], in thecase that

$\begin{matrix}{\beta_{v} = \left\{ \begin{matrix}{\left. {1/} \middle| {\Gamma_{\Psi}\left( {\max\left\{ {f_{\Psi}(v)} \middle| {v \in V_{i}} \right\}} \right)} \right|,} & {{{r(v)} = i},} \\{0,} & {{r(v)} \neq {i.}}\end{matrix} \right.} & \;\end{matrix}$

the optimizing target is to make Θ_(Ψ)(G) minimum, i.e. to obtain theleast number of total colors needed for completing the coloring of allthe vertexes having the i th priority level. In the open spectrum accesssystem of the relay network, when i=1, the optimizing target is to makethe resources needed for completing the traffic of all the users in theprimary system to be minimum.

In the above 3 examples, by setting different values for the coefficientβ_(v), the different optimizing target of resource allocation can bequantized. In other words, by using the methods, the optimizing targetof resource allocation can be quantized based on the constraintconditions of resource allocation.

Some examples of establishing the constraint conditions of the resourceallocation and quantizing the optimizing target of resource allocationbased on the resource allocation model are described above. It should benoted that these examples are merely illustrative, rather thanexhaustive. Therefore, the disclosure should not be considered aslimited to these.

In addition, the hierarchically weighted mixed graph multicoloringmethod may be applied to the system resource sharing and managementhaving multiple priority levels and similar constraint conditions. Inaddition to the system resource sharing and management in thecommunication system, the method may also be used in machine scheduling,such as the pipeline machine scheduling.

FIG. 8 shows the flow chart of a method of determining a resourceallocation policy in the communication system according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure.

In the embodiment of FIG. 8, the step of determining the resourceallocation policy of the communication system based on the establishedquantized relation is further refined. As shown in FIG. 8, the step ofdetermining the resource allocation policy of the communication systembased on the established quantized relation may include 2 sub-stepsS808-1 and S808-2. In sub-step S808-1, the links in the resourceallocation model are sorted, to select the links that can be allocatedwith resources at the same time. In sub-step S808-2, resources areallocated to each of the selected links based on the resource allocationconstraint conditions and the quantized resource allocation target.

In an example, before the step of determining the resource allocationpolicy of the communication system based on the established quantizedrelation, the method may further include a step of clustering the radiolinks in the communication system, which is the same as the aboveembodiments or examples and the description of which is not repeated).In the example, the established resource allocation model may reflectthe neighborhood relations between the links, the mutual exclusionrelations between the links, and the bandwidth requirement and prioritylevel of each link in the communication system. Step S808-1 may include:sorting the link clusters in the resource allocation model, to selectlink clusters to which resources can be allocated at the same time. StepS808-2 may include: allocating resources to each of the selected linkclusters based on the resource allocation constraint conditions and thequantized resource allocation target. In addition, in the example, theprocess of determining the resource allocation policy of thecommunication system may further include a step of further allocatingthe resources for each link cluster to each link in the link cluster. Byusing link clustering, the complexity of the process of deciding theresource allocation policy is reduced.

FIG. 19 shows a particular example of determining the resourceallocation policy of the communication system based on the quantizedrelation between the resource management information of thecommunication system and the resource allocation target.

As shown in FIG. 19, the method includes a step of resource allocationamong clusters and a step of resource allocation within a cluster, i.e.steps S1908 and S1910 in FIG. 19.

In step S1908, the resource allocation among clusters is performed, inother words, to solve the HWM² problem. Since various optimizing targetsin the problem are NP-hard problem (That is, an optimum solution can notbe reached within polynomial time) and the resource allocation in thecommunication system (e.g. an open spectrum access system) needs to beperformed repeatedly and frequently, some approximate algorithms may beemployed to obtain the secondly optimum allocation policy, so as tobalance between the system performance and the computation complexity.The example of FIG. 19 provides an approximate solving scheme. The stepsin the method shown in FIG. 19 are described with graph T and graph G inFIG. 17 and FIGS. 18A-C as examples. The method in the example issuitable to the multicoloring based on the 3 types of constraintconditions in Table 2. The optimizing target is to obtain the weightedchromatic number. As shown in FIG. 19, the step of resource allocationamong clusters includes 5 sub-steps.

In step S1908-1, graph T is initialized. In the initial status of theinitialized graph T, compared with hierarchically weighted mixed graphthe difference lies only in that in graph T the weight of a vertexhaving a precedence vertex is 0. The vertexes in graph G are limited byeach other. Therefore the vertexes in graph G are colored in a certainorder. The vertexes in graph T comply with the condition “weight is notzero”, which means that the vertex can be colored currently, i.e.,resources can be allocated to the vertexes.

In step S1908-2, vertexes that can be colored are selected and theselected vertexes are sorted. Particularly, the vertexes that can becurrently colored in graph T, i.e. the vertexes whose weights are notzero in graph T, are selected first. Then the selected vertexes that canbe colored are sorted.

It should be noted that, the optimum solution of HWM² problem isobtained by coloring in order the vertexes selected from an orderedsequence by using each color, and the sorting target in the approximatesolution is to make as many as vertexes obtain resources at the sametime, so as to approach the optimum solution.

As an example, a possible rule of sorting the vertexes includes: (1)sorting vertexes having different priority levels in an order from highpriority level to low priority level, (2) sorting the vertexes havingthe same priority level based on the lengths of the directional pathsusing the vertexes as destinations, in an order from large length fromsmall length (the length of a directional path is the number of arcs inthe path), (3) sorting the vertexes corresponding to the samedirectional path length based on the sum value of weights of vertexes onthe directional path with the vertexes as start points, in an order fromlarge from small, and (4) randomly sorting the remaining vertexes. Thusan ordered set of colorable vertexes is obtained, which may be denotedby Z.

In step S1908-3, the vertexes in the set of colorable vertexes arecolored. Particularly, vertexes that can be colored at the same time areselected from the set, and colors are allocated to these vertexes. As anexample, a possible method of selecting vertexes that can be colored atthe same time includes: checking the vertexes in the set Z in order, toobtain a Maximal Independent Set, which may be denoted as U. In themaximal independent set U, any two vertexes are not connected via edgeor arc. The value of color number n to be allocated at the same time nmaximum value of weights of vertexes in maximal independent set U) willnot affect the computation amount of the resource allocation. The largerthe value of n is (That is the larger the number of colors to beallocated at the same time), the fewer the cycle number in the algorithmis, so that the computation amount is reduced. But the total number ofcolors finally allocated will increase.

In step S1908-4, the weight values of the vertexes in graph T aremodified. Particularly, the number n of colors allocated to the vertexis subtracted from the weight of each vertex. If the total number ofcolors allocated to a vertex reaches the weight value of the vertex ingraph the state of the vertex is labeled as colored.

In step S1908-5, it is determined whether all the vertexes in graph Thave been labeled as colored. If yes, the coloring is ended. Otherwise,the process goes to step S1908-2 for a new cycle.

In step S1910, resource allocation within a cluster is performed.

Resources allocated to a cluster in step S1908 are further allocated tothe links in the link cluster. If a cluster is an aggregation ofmultiple natural clusters, the natural clusters may be used as vertexesto form a new HWM² problem, which may be solved as descried above. If acluster is a natural cluster or a sub-set of a natural cluster, anyappropriate resource allocation method may be used to allocate resourcesin the cluster. For example the various resource allocation methods ofcommunication networks having Point-to-Multipoint architecture may beused to allocate resources, the description of which is not detailedherein. In this way the resource amount allocated to each link in thecommunication system can be obtained.

FIG. 9 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The resourcemanagement method of FIG. 9 is based on the embodiment shown I FIG. 3,and uses the method of determining the resource allocation policy shownin FIGS. 6-8.

As shown in FIG. 9, the resource management method includes steps S902,S904, S906 and S908. Step S902 is similar to step S302 of FIG. 3 or stepS402 in FIG. 4; step S904 is similar to step S304 in FIG. 3 or stepsS404-1 and S404-2 in FIG. 4; step S906 is similar to step S806 in FIG.6, or similar to steps S706-1 and S706-2, or similar to steps S806-1 andS806-2 in FIG. 8; and step S908 is similar to step S808 in FIG. 6, orstep S708 in FIG. 7, or steps S808-1 and S808-2 in FIG. 8, thedescription of which is not repeated.

FIG. 10 is a schematic flowchart illustrating the resource managementmethod according to another embodiment of the disclosure. The resourcemanagement method in FIG. 10 is similar to that in FIG. 9. Thedifference lies in that the method shown in FIG. 10 further includes astep of clustering the links.

As shown in FIG. 10, the resource management method includes stepsS1001, S1002, S1004, S1006 and S1008. In step S1001, the radio links inthe communication system are clustered to obtain one or more linkclusters. By using the link clustering, the working amount in theprocess of collecting the resource management information may be reducedand the complexity of the process of deciding the resource allocationpolicy may also be decreased. The link clustering method in the aboveembodiments or examples may be used, the description of which is notrepeated.

In addition, the link clustering step 1001 is not limited to be executedbefore step S1002. In another example, step 1001 may be executed at anyappropriate time during the process of the resource management asrequired, such as before step S1004, or before step S1006 or the like,the description of which is not detailed herein.

Steps S1002, S1004, S1006 and S1008 are similar to steps S902, S904,S906 and S908 in FIG. 9, the description of which is not repeated.

FIG. 11 is a schematic flow chart showing the method of selecting theresource allocation mechanism according to an embodiment of thedisclosure. The resource allocation mechanism refers to the resourceallocation is performed by which of the nodes in the communicationsystem (e.g. an open spectrum access system). In the method of FIG. 11the resource allocation mechanism of the communication system may beadjusted adaptively based on the variation in traffic load of thecommunication system.

As shown in FIG. 11, the method includes steps S1110 and S1112. In stepS1110, a statistic of the traffic load of the communication system isperformed. As an example, the load may be calculated based on the ratiobetween the average system throughput in a time period and the systemcapacity. Of course, the statistic of the load of the communicationsystem may be performed by any other appropriate method, the descriptionof which is not detailed herein.

Then, in step S1112, the resource allocation mechanism for implementingthe resource allocation policy is selected based on the statistic of theload. That is, it is determined to use which of the nodes in thecommunication system to perform the resource allocation policy of thecommunication system based on the load.

FIG. 12 shows an example of the method. As shown in FIG. 12, after thestatistic of load of the communication system in step S1210, in stepS1212-1 it is judged whether the communication system is in a light loadstatus or a heavy load status based on the load. In the case of lightload status, a centralized resource allocation mechanism is chosen instep S1212-2; and in the case of heavy load status, a distributedresource allocation mechanism is chosen in step S1212-3.

As an example, whether the communication system is in a light loadstatus or a heavy load status may be determined by judging whether thestatistic value of load is larger than a predetermined threshold value.For example, if the statistic value of load is larger than the thresholdvalue, it may be determined that the communication system is in a heavyload status, otherwise, it is determined that the communication systemis in a light load status. The threshold value may be set as required,the description of which is not detailed herein.

In the centralized resource allocation mechanism the main control node,e.g., the base station in the primary system network, in thecommunication system is used to allocate resources of the communicationsystem in a centralized manner. In the resource allocation mechanism theresource management information and the optimizing target of resourceallocation need to be reported to the base station and the base stationdecides the resource allocation policy, and issues the resourceallocation result to the nodes in the communication system.

In the distributed resource allocation mechanism, multiple nodes in thecommunication system may be used as local deciding nodes. Each localdeciding node allocates resources in the local area associated with it.Then, the main control node (e.g. the base station) coordinates thelocal deciding results to obtain the final resource allocation policy.For example, in the case that the communication system includes multiplesystem networks, the base station of the primary system networkcoordinates the local deciding results. In this mechanism, the resourcemanagement information of nodes of the local area is gathered into thelocal deciding node, and the local deciding node analyzes and quantizesthe local information, to obtain a local allocation policy. The localallocation policies are gathered into the base station (or the basestation of the primary system network) and are coordinated to obtain aglobal resource allocation policy of the communication system.

Different resource allocation mechanisms cause the functions of thenodes in the communication system to be different, thereby causing thedifferences in the types, amount, and objects of the transferredinformation. In this way the amounts, flows, and transmission times ofthe interaction information in the communication system are different.In the embodiment of FIGS. 10-11, the resource allocation mechanism maybe selected adaptively based on the variation in load of thecommunication system. In this way, the computation and communicationcapability of the nodes may be sufficiently utilized and balance betweenthe system performance and system cost may be reached, and theutilization rate of sources may be improved as much as possible. Forexample, if the load of the communication system is heavy, the load ofthe base station, which serves as the destination of all the data, ofthe primary system is very heavy. And at this time some nodes in thecommunication system are idle, and may be used to do local resourceallocation deciding. Thus the computation load of the base station maybe reduced and the information needed to be transmitted to the basestation in the resource allocation becomes fewer. If the load of thecommunication system is light, all the resource management informationmay be gathered into the base station which determines a globallyoptimum deciding policy, so as to optimize the system performance.

The method of selecting the resource allocation mechanism shown in FIG.11 and FIG. 12 may be applied to the resource management method in theabove embodiments or examples. FIG. 13 shows an embodiment of theresource management method in which the method of selecting the resourceallocation mechanism shown in FIG. 11 is used. As shown in FIG. 13, theresource management method includes steps S1302, S1304, S1306 and S1310,S1312. Step S1302, S1304, S1306 are similar to steps S302, S304 and S306in FIG. 3, and steps S1310 and S1312 are similar to steps S1110 andS1112 in FIG. 11, the description of which is not repeated. In theembodiment, the information collection policy may be adjusted adaptivelybased on the degree of operating status variation of the communicationsystem; in addition, the resource allocation mechanism suitable for theload may be selected based on the variation in load of the communicationsystem. It should be noted that, the embodiment shown in FIG. 13 ismerely illustrative, rather than exhaustive. For example, the stepsshown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 may be performed after or before the stepsin FIG. 4-FIG. 10 or executed during the process shown in FIG. 4-FIG.10. For another example, the steps shown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 may beexecuted in parallel with the process of FIG. 3-FIG. 10, the descriptionof which is not detailed herein.

In the above embodiments and examples the method of resource sharing andmanagement in the communication system is described. The resourcemanagement method may be applied to the open spectrum access system,especially the communication system in which multiple networks co-exist.The above resource management method may be adjusted adaptively based onthe variation in the system structure, such as thenumber/position/signal coverage/mobility of nodes (e.g. the relaystation) in the primary system, the type/scale/number of the secondarysystems, and the like. In the case that the resource requirements ofusers in the primary system are met, the resources are multiplexed asmuch as possible, to provide the users in the secondary system withchances of utilizing the resources, thereby improving the overallsystem's resource utilization rate.

FIG. 20 shows the resource management system for resource sharing andmanagement in the communication system according to an embodiment of thedisclosure. Similar to the above embodiments and examples, the resourcesmay include the time domain resources, the frequency domain resources,and the code domain resources and any combination thereof. Thecommunication system may be a communication system needing a dynamicallocation and management for the resources, such as the communicationsystem having the features of open spectrum access system (For examplethe systems shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2).

As shown in FIG. 20, the resource management system may include a statusquery apparatus 2001, an information collecting apparatus 2003 and anallocation policy deciding apparatus 2005.

The status query apparatus 2001 may judge whether the degree ofoperating status variation of the communication system causes resourcemanagement information of the communication system to change. In otherwords, the status query apparatus 2001 determines whether the resourcemanagement information of the communication system needs to bere-collected based on the degree of operating status variation of thecommunication system. If yes, the status query apparatus 2001 instructsthe information collecting apparatus 2003 to re-collect the resourcemanagement information. Otherwise, the resource management informationis not re-collected, while the previously collected or saved resourcemanagement information may be used.

Similar to the above embodiment or examples, the resource managementinformation of the communication system refers to the information thatis capable of affecting the management of resources and the deciding ofallocation policy of the communication system, and includes but notlimited to information regarding statuses of nodes, interferencestatuses between links and traffic flows in the communication system,and the like. Examples of the resource management information areprovided above, the description of which is not repeated.

The information collecting apparatus 2003 may recollect the resourcemanagement information of the communication system based on theinstruction of the status query apparatus 2001.

As an example, the collected resource management information may bestored in a storage device which may be provided in the resourcemanagement system or may be located in a node (e.g. the base station) ofthe communication system. As an example, the resource managementinformation of the communication system may be saved in the main controlnode (e.g. the base station in the primary system) of the communicationsystem. As another example, the resource management information may bedistributedly saved in other nodes of the communication system, such asin one or more relay stations. Particularly, each relay station may savethe management information of the associated local area in which therelay station is located. The resource management information may besaved as required by using any appropriate technology, the descriptionof which is not detailed herein. The storage device may be any suitablerecord medium, including but not limited to a floppy disc, an opticaldisc, a magnetic-optical disc, a memory card, a memory stick, or thelike, the description of which is not detailed herein.

The allocation policy deciding apparatus 2005 may determine the resourceallocation policy of the communication system based on the resourcemanagement information.

During collection (e.g. analysis/statistic/measurement) of theinformation needed for the resource allocation, the resource managementsystem of FIG. 20 may adjust the policy of collecting informationadaptively based on the degree of operating status variation of thecommunication system, so that the system cost for information collectionmay be reduced effectively.

The status query apparatus 2001 may determine whether the degree ofoperating status variation of the communication system affects theinformation for resource management and deciding (That is, the resourcemanagement information whether needs to be re-collected) by usingvarious appropriate methods.

As an example, if the operating status variation of the communicationsystem relates to only a local area, only the resource managementinformation associated with the local area needs to be re-collected,while the resource management information associated with other areasmay remain as previously collected or saved information. As anotherexample, if the variation of the communication system relates to onlypart of operating statuses thereof (e.g. interference status betweenlinks or statuses of traffic flows), only the information associatedwith this part of operating statuses is re-collected. For example, whena primary user node moves, the mutual exclusion relation between linksconnecting the node and other nodes is caused to change, while thetraffic flows remain unchanged. In this case, only the informationassociated with the mutual exclusion relation between related links isre-collected, while the information of traffic flows related to thisnode may use the previously collected or saved information. For anotherexample, when the traffic flow between a primary user node and othernodes changes while the interference relationship between the linksremains unchanged, only the information of the traffic flows associatedwith the primary user node is re-collected, and the information ofmutual exclusion relation between links associated with the primary usernode needs not to be re-collected.

FIG. 21 shows the resource management system according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure.

The resource management system in FIG. 21 is similar to that of FIG. 20,that is, it includes a status query apparatus 2101, an informationcollecting apparatus 2103 and an allocation policy deciding apparatus2105. The difference lies in that, the information collecting apparatus2103 further includes an interference status collecting unit 2103-1configured to collect information regarding the interference statusesbetween the links and a traffic flow collecting unit 2103-2 configuredto collect information regarding the traffic flows. The status queryapparatus 2101 is configured to judge whether the operating statusvariation of the communication system affects the interference statusesbetween the links in the communication system, and if yes, instruct theinterference status collecting unit 2103-1 to re-collect informationregarding the interference statuses between the links. The status queryapparatus 2101 further judges whether the operating status variation ofthe communication system affects the traffic flows in the communicationsystem, and if yes, instruct the traffic flow collecting unit 2103-2 tore-collect information regarding the traffic flows. If the operatingstatus variation of the communication system does not affect theinterference statuses between links in the communication system and thetraffic flows of the communication system, the system managementinformation needs not to be re-collected. In other words, in this case,the resource management information is not recollected, and thepreviously collected or saved resource management information may beused. The allocation policy deciding apparatus 2105 is similar to theallocation policy deciding apparatus 2005 in FIG. 20, the description ofwhich is not repeated.

Similar to the resource management system in FIG. 20, the resourcemanagement system in FIG. 21 adaptively adjusts the policy ofinformation collection based on the degree of operating status variationof the communication system during collection (e.g.analysis/statistic/measurement) of information needed for the resourceallocation, so as to reduce the system cost of information collectioneffectively. Particularly, whether the resource management informationneeds to be re-collected and which resource management information needsto be re-collected may be determined according to the degree ofvariation in various operating statuses (e.g. changes in the mutualexclusion relation between links between some nodes and traffic flows ofsome nodes, and the like) in the areas of the communication system (Inthe example of FIG. 21 the information regarding the mutual exclusionrelation between links is re-collected, or the information regardingtraffic flows is recollected, or both are re-collected).

The information collecting apparatus 2003 or 2103 may collect theresource management information of the communication system by using anyof the above described method, for example, in the embodiments orexamples described with reference to FIG. 14-FIG. 16, the description ofwhich is not repeated.

FIG. 22 shows the resource management system according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure. In the embodiment, before collecting theresource management information of the communication system, the linksof the communication system are clustered.

As shown in FIG. 22, the resource management system includes a statusquery apparatus 2201, an information collecting apparatus 2203 and anallocation policy deciding apparatus 2205, and further includes a linkclustering apparatus 2207.

The status query apparatus 2201, the information collecting apparatus2203 and the allocation policy deciding apparatus 2205 are similar tothose in FIG. 20 or 21.

The link clustering apparatus 2207 may cluster the links in thecommunication system into one or more link clusters. The link clusteringapparatus 2207 may perform the clustering by using any of the methodsdescribed above, the description of which is not repeated. Theinformation collecting apparatus 2203 may collect the resourcemanagement information based on the result of the clustering.Particularly, the information collecting apparatus 2203 may collect theresource management information by obtaining information regardinginterference statuses between the link clusters, interference statusesbetween links within each link cluster and traffic flows of each linkcluster.

As a particular example, after the link clustering apparatus 2207clusters the links, the information collecting apparatus 2203 maycollect the information regarding interference statuses by obtaininginformation regarding interference statuses between the link clusters,interference statuses between links within each link cluster and mayrecollect the information regarding traffic flows by obtaining andtraffic flows of each link cluster. In addition, as an example, theallocation policy deciding apparatus 2205 may allocate resources to eachlink clusters first and then allocate the resources for each linkcluster to the links within the link cluster during determination of theresource allocation policy based on the resource management information(For example, see the example shown in FIG. 19).

The resource management system in FIG. 22 clusters the links of thecommunication system, which can reduce the working amount forrecollecting the resource management information and decrease thecomplexity of the deciding of the resource allocation policy, therebyreducing the system load.

FIG. 23 shows an allocation policy deciding apparatus determining theresource allocation policy of the communication system based on theresource management information of the communication system according toan embodiment of the disclosure.

The allocation policy deciding apparatus 2305 of FIG. 23 includes aninformation transforming unit 2305-1 and a determining unit 2305-2. Theinformation transforming unit 2305-1 may establish a quantized relationbetween the resource management information and a resource allocationtarget, and the determining unit 2305-2 may determine the resourceallocation policy according to the established quantized relation. As aparticular example, the information transforming unit 2305-1 mayestablish the quantized relation by: establishing a resource allocationmodel according to the resource management information first andestablishing a constrained condition for resource allocation accordingto the resource allocation model and quantizing the resource allocationtarget. Similar to the above embodiment or examples, the resourceallocation model reflects neighborhood relations between the links,mutual exclusion relations between the links, and bandwidth requirementand priority level of each link in the communication system, and thelike. The information transforming unit 2305-1 may establish theresource allocation model of the communication system by using the abovedescribed method, such as the method described with reference to FIG. 7and FIGS. 18A-C, and may establish various constraint conditions andquantize the resource allocation target by using the above describedmethod, such as the method described with reference to thehierarchically weighted mixed graph multicoloring, the description ofwhich is not repeated.

As another particular example, the determining unit 2305-2 may determinethe resource allocation policy by: arranging an order for links in theresource allocation model, selecting links that can be allocated withresources simultaneously therein and allocating resources for each ofthe selected links according to the constrained condition for resourceallocation and the quantized resource allocation target. The determiningunit 2305-2 may determine the resource allocation policy by using theabove described method, such as the method described with reference toFIG. 8 and FIG. 19, the description of which is not repeated.

FIG. 24 shows the allocation policy deciding apparatus 2405 according toanother embodiment of the disclosure. Similar to the allocation policydeciding apparatus 2305 in FIG. 23, the allocation policy decidingapparatus 2405 in FIG. 24 includes an information transforming unit2405-1 and a determining unit 2405-2. The difference lies in that, theallocation policy deciding apparatus 2405 in FIG. 24 further includes alink clustering apparatus 2405-3. The link clustering apparatus 2405-3may cluster the links in the communication system into one or more linkclusters. The link clustering apparatus 2405-3 may perform theclustering by using the above described method, the description of whichis not repeated. With the links of the communication system beingclustered, the resource allocation model established by the informationtransforming unit 2405-1 reflects neighborhood relations between thelink clusters, mutual exclusion relations between the link clusters, andbandwidth requirement and priority level of each link cluster in thecommunication system, and the like. The determining unit 2405-2 mayarrange an order for link clusters in the resource allocation model,select link clusters that can be allocated with resources simultaneouslytherein; and allocate resources for each of the selected link clustersaccording to the constrained condition for resource allocation and thequantized resource allocation target. The determining unit 2405-2 mayfurther allocate the resources allocated to each link cluster to linkswithin the each link cluster. As can be seen, by the link clustering,the complexity of the deciding process of the resource allocation policycan be reduced.

The allocation policy deciding apparatus 230 or 2405 in FIG. 23 or 24may be applied to the above resource management system, such as theresource management systems described with reference to FIG. 20-FIG.22), the description of which is not detailed herein.

FIG. 25 shows the allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2508 whichdetermines the resource allocation mechanism of the communication systemaccording to an embodiment of the disclosure. Similar to the aboveembodiment or examples, the resource allocation mechanism refers towhich nodes in the communication system (e.g. the open spectrum accesssystem) are used for the resource allocation. The allocation mechanismcontrolling apparatus 2508 of FIG. 25 may adaptively adjust the resourceallocation mechanism of the communication system based on the variationin load of the communication system.

As shown in FIG. 25, the allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2508includes a statistic unit 2508-1 and a selecting unit 2508-2. Thestatistic unit 2508-1 is configured to perform a statistic of trafficload of the communication system, and the selecting unit 2508-2 isconfigured to select a resource allocation mechanism for implementingthe resource allocation policy according to the traffic load. Similar tothe above embodiment or examples, the load may be calculated based onthe ratio between the average system throughput in a time period and thesystem capacity. Of course, the statistic unit 2508-1 may perform thestatistic of the load of the communication system by any otherappropriate method, the description of which is not detailed herein.

In an example, the selecting unit 2508-2 is further configured to judgewhether the communication system is in a light-load status or aheavy-load status according to the traffic load. In the case of thelight-load status, the selecting unit 2508-2 selects a centralizedresource allocation mechanism as the resource allocation mechanism ofthe communication system. In the case of the heavy-load status, theselecting unit 2508-2 selects a distributed resource allocationmechanism as the resource allocation mechanism of the communicationsystem. As a particular example, the selecting unit may judge whetherthe communication system is in a light-load status or a heavy-loadstatus by determining whether the traffic load is larger than apredetermined threshold value. For example, if the load is larger thanthe threshold value, the selecting unit may determine that thecommunication system is in heavy load, otherwise, in light load. Thethreshold value may be set as required, and is not limited to anyparticular value herein.

The centralized resource allocation mechanism and the distributedresource allocation mechanism have been described above, the descriptionof which is not repeated.

The allocation mechanism controlling apparatus of FIG. 25 may be appliedto the resource management systems shown in FIG. 20-FIG. 22. FIG. 26shows an example of the resource management system including theallocation mechanism controlling apparatus. As shown in FIG. 26, theresource management system includes a status query apparatus 2601, aninformation collecting apparatus 2603 and an allocation policy decidingapparatus 2605, and further includes an allocation mechanism controllingapparatus 2608. The allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2608 issimilar to the apparatus 2508 shown in FIG. 25, the status queryapparatus 2601, the information collecting apparatus 2603 and theallocation policy deciding apparatus 2605 are similar to thecorresponding apparatuses shown in FIG. 20, the description of which isnot repeated. After selecting the resource allocation mechanism of thecommunication system, the allocation mechanism controlling apparatus2608 may feed back the resource allocation mechanism to the allocationpolicy deciding apparatus 2605, so that the communication system mayallocate resources by using the resource allocation policy determined bythe allocation policy deciding apparatus 2605 based on the resourceallocation mechanism.

FIG. 27 shows the resource management system according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure. Similar to the embodiment of FIG. 20, theresource management system in FIG. 27 includes a status query apparatus2701, an information collecting apparatus 2703 and an allocation policydeciding apparatus 2705. The difference lies int that the resourcemanagement system of FIG. 7 may further include include an informationmanaging apparatus 2709.

The status query apparatus 2701, the information collecting apparatus2703 and the allocation policy deciding apparatus 2705 are similar tothe corresponding apparatuses of FIG. 20, the description of which isnot repeated.

The information managing apparatus 2709 is configured to manage and savethe operating statuses of the communication system. The informationmanaging apparatus 2709 may be driven by various events of statuschanges, such as the moving of the relay station RS, the change ofcoverage dued to change in power of the relay station RS, or entering orleaving of a user, or the like, in the communication system, and updatethe corresponding status information according to the changes. Thestatus query apparatus 2701 may query the information managing apparatus2709 to determine the degree of operating status variation of thecommunication system, thereby determining whether the resourcemanagement information needs to be re-collected and determining theinformation of which operating statuses regarding which area in thesystem needs to be collected. As an example, when the informationmanaging apparatus 2709 detects the change in the interference statusesbetween links or in traffic flows of the communication system, it maynotify the status query apparatus 2701 by for example transmitting acontrol signal. For example, when detecting the change in theinterference statuses between links or in traffic flows of thecommunication system, the information managing apparatus 2709 may changethe corresponding status bits in the control signal to be transmitted tothe status query apparatus 2701, so as to notify the change to thestatus query apparatus 2701. For example, when the change in theoperating statuses of the communication system may affect theinterference conditions between links, the bit for interferencemeasurement status in the control signal may be set as 1 (True); andwhen the change in the operating statuses of the communication systemcause the change in traffic flows, the bit for traffic flow statisticstatus may be set as 1 (True). As another example, the status queryapparatus 2701 may send a request to the information managing apparatus2709 (For example by transmitting the above control signal) and theinformation managing apparatus 2709 may feed back the change to thestatus query apparatus 2701. As another example, the status queryapparatus 2701 may read from the information managing apparatus 2709 theinformation regarding the change in the operating statuses of thecommunication system. For example, the interference measurement statusor the traffic flow statistic status may be saved the informationmanaging apparatus 2709 and may be updated by the information managingapparatus 2709 continuously. The status query apparatus 2701 may obtainthe degree of change in the operating statuses of the communicationsystem by reading these statuses.

FIG. 28 shows the resource management system according to anotherembodiment of the disclosure. Similar to the embodiment in FIG. 27, theresource management system of FIG. 28 includes a status query apparatus2801, an information collecting apparatus 2803, an allocation policydeciding apparatus 2805 and an information managing apparatus 2809. Thedifference lies in that the resource management system in FIG. 28 mayfurther include a link clustering apparatus 2807 and an allocationmechanism controlling apparatus 2808.

The status query apparatus 2801, the information collecting apparatus2803, the allocation policy deciding apparatus 2805 and the informationmanaging apparatus 2809 are similar to the corresponding apparatuses inFIG. 27, the description of which is not repeated.

The link clustering apparatus 2807 is similar to the link clusteringapparatus 2207 in FIG. 22, and the allocation mechanism controllingapparatus 2808 is similar to the allocation mechanism controllingapparatus 2508 or 2608 shown in FIG. 25 or 26, the description of whichis not repeated.

FIG. 29 shows a particular example of the resource management system forresource sharing and management in the communication system.

The resource management system in FIG. 29 includes a status queryapparatus 2901, an information collecting apparatus 2903, an allocationpolicy deciding apparatus 2905, an information managing apparatus 2909,and an allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2908.

The communication system in this example is an open spectrum accesssystem, for example, a communication system including a primary systemnetwork and at least one secondary system network. The resourcemanagement information of such communication system includes but notlimited to the statuses of the nodes in the primary system network andthe secondary system network, the interference statuses between linksand traffic flows, etc. The information managing apparatus 2909 mayinclude a primary information managing unit 2909-1 for storing theresource management information of the primary system network and mayfurther include a secondary information managing unit 2909-2 for storingthe resource management information of the secondary system network. Theexample of the resource management information has been described above,the description of which is not repeated. As a particular example, theprimary information managing unit 2909-1 may include a primary userinformation sub-unit 2909-11 for storing the information related to theprimary users in the primary system network (e.g. as shown in Table 1)and a primary network information sub-unit 2909-12 for storing theinformation regarding the primary system network (e.g. as shown in Table1). As another particular example, the secondary information managingunit 2909-2 may include a secondary user information sub-unit 2909-21for storing the information regarding the secondary users in thesecondary system network (e.g. as shown in Table 1) and a secondarynetwork information sub-unit 2909-22 for storing the informationregarding the secondary system network (e.g. as shown in Table 1). Theunits or sub-units may be driven by various events of status changes(such as the moving of the relay station RS, the change in coverage dueto change in power of the relay station RS, or the entering and leavingof the primary or secondary user, or the like) of the communicationsystem and update the status information based on the changes.

The status query apparatus 2901 may query the information managingapparatus 2909 to obtain whether the operating statuses of thecommunication system change since the last query, to determine whetherthe resource management information needs to be re-collected. The statusquery apparatus 2901 may obtain the information regarding the statuschange of the communication system from the information managingapparatus 2909 by using the above described method, the description ofwhich is not repeated.

The information collecting apparatus 2903 includes an interferencestatus collecting unit 2903-1 and a traffic flow collecting unit 2903-2.The units 2903-1 and 2903-2 are similar to those in FIG. 21, thedescription of which is not repeated. If the status query apparatus 2901determines that the resource management information needs to bere-collected, it may send an actuating signal to the informationcollecting apparatus 2903, to actuate the units to collect information.For example, if the interference statuses between links of thecommunication system change, the interference status collecting unit2903-1 is actuated; and if the traffic flow statues of the communicationsystem change, the traffic flow collecting unit 2903-2 is actuated. Theinformation collecting apparatus 2903 may further include a firstinformation distributing sub-unit 2903-3. The first informationdistributing sub-unit 2903-3 may perform information interaction withother apparatuses in the resource management system. For example, Thefirst information distributing sub-unit 2903-3 may transmit theinformation collected by the units 2903-1 and 2903-2 to the informationmanaging apparatus 2909 and the allocation policy deciding apparatus2905, and the like, and may receive information from the allocationmechanism controlling apparatus 2908.

If the status query apparatus 2901 determines that the resourcemanagement information needs not to be re-collected, it may instructsthe allocation policy deciding apparatus 2905 to use the resourcemanagement information obtained in the last query to determine theresource allocation policy. As an example, the resource managementinformation obtained in the last query may be saved in the informationmanaging apparatus 2909.

The allocation policy deciding apparatus 2905 includes an informationtransforming unit 2905-1 and a determining unit 2905-2. The units 2905-1and 2905-2 are similar to those in FIG. 23 or 24, the description ofwhich is not repeated. The allocation policy deciding apparatus 2905 mayfurther include a second information distributing sub-unit 2905-3. Thesecond information distributing sub-unit 2905-3 may perform informationinteraction with other apparatuses in the resource management system,for example, it may receive information from the information collectingapparatus 2903 and/or the information managing apparatus 2909 and/or thestatus query apparatus 2901 and may obtain from the allocation mechanismcontrolling apparatus 2908 the information regarding the traffic loadand the resource allocation mechanism, and may further transmit thedetermined resource allocation policy, for example, to a correspondingpolicy implementing device (not shown).

The policy implementing device firstly converts the number of resourcesallocated to each link to the actual radio resources (e.g. time domainresources, frequency domain resources, code domain resources or anycombination thereof), and then form information packets of the resourceallocation policy with reference to the resources needed for managementof the communication system (e.g. the resources needed for userinformation interaction in the communication system), and issue theinformation packets. For the primary system network, the informationissuing may be performed by carrying the information in frames; and forthe secondary system network, the information issuing may be performedby information interaction of the primary system/the secondary system.Then, the nodes in the primary/secondary system network may transmitdata via the allocated radio resources. As an example, the policyimplementing device may be configured in the main control node (such asthe base station or the base station in the primary system network) inthe communication system.

The allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2908 is similar to theapparatus 2508 or 2608 in FIG. 25 or 26.

The allocation mechanism controlling apparatus 2908 may adaptivelychange the content of information interaction based on the change inload status of the communication system in operation. By controlling theoperations of the distributing units in the apparatuses, a flexibleresource allocation mechanism of open spectrum access system may beformed, and thus the computation and communication capability of thenodes in the system may be utilized effectively. In this way the systemperformance may be improved. For example, in the centralized resourceallocation mechanism (also referred to as center-controlled resourceallocation mechanism), the base station of the primary system networkmay perform the resource management and deciding in a centralizedmanner. This needs the second information distributing unit to gatherthe information of resource allocation and the optimizing targetobtained by the information transforming apparatuses to the basestation. Once the base station decides the resource allocation policy,the second information distributing unit sends the policy to the nodes.In the distributed resource allocation mechanism, part of nodes in theresource management system is used as local deciding nodes forprocessing the resource management and deciding in the local areas. Thebase station of the primary system network coordinates the results oflocal deciding and obtain the resource allocation policy. In thedistributed resource allocation mechanism, the results of collecting theresource management information of the nodes are gathered into the localdeciding node of the local area and the local deciding node performsconversion and calculation on the local information to obtain a localdeciding result. These local deciding results are gathered in the basestation of the primary system network, to obtain a global resourceallocation result which is issued to the nodes by the informationdistributing units.

Similar to the apparatus 2508 in FIG. 25, the allocation mechanismcontrolling apparatus 2908 may include a statistic unit and a selectingunit (not shown). The statistic unit performs a statistic of the loadstatuses of the communication system. In the case of light load, theselecting unit selects the centralized resource allocation mechanism;and in the case of heavy load, the selecting unit selects thedistributed resource allocation mechanism. As an example, the load maybe calculated based on the ratio between the average system throughputin a time period and the system capacity. If the load exceeds athreshold value, it may be determined that the communication system hasheavy load, otherwise, it may be determined that the communicationsystem has light load. As described above the threshold value may be setas required and should not be limited to any particular value.

In the case that the centralized resource allocation mechanism isselected, the selecting unit may further determine the types, amount,objects, and transmission times of the information to be interacted. Forexample, the information regarding the resource allocation and theoptimizing target obtained by the information transforming apparatus maybe gathered in the base station. Once the base station decides theresource allocation policy, it may be issued to the nodes by the secondinformation distributing unit.

In the case that the distributed resource allocation mechanism isselected, the nodes in the communication system need to be classifiedbased on the functions, to select the local policy deciding nodes. Thelocal policy deciding nodes may be selected by the base station of theprimary system network. For example, the local policy deciding nodes maybe selected based on the computation capabilities, position distributionand communication conditions of the nodes. As an example, if the primarysystem network is a relay network, the relay stations may be chosen, orthe routers, access points (APs) or user nodes having a good computationcapability may be chosen. After selecting the local policy decidingnodes, the selecting unit may further determine the types, amount,objects and transmission times of the interaction information. As anexample, it is supposed that the information of 100 nodes in thecommunication system needs to be collected. In this case, in distributedresource allocation mechanism, 10 local policy deciding nodes may bechosen. At this time, each local policy deciding node is in charge ofthe information collection and allocation policy deciding of 10 nodes inaverage. If 5 local policy deciding nodes are chosen, each local policydeciding node is in charge of the information collection and allocationpolicy deciding of 20 nodes in average. The local policy deciding nodescan gather the collected information to obtain a local resourceallocation model, and send to the central deciding node (e.g. the basestation) to decide the resource allocation policy. Or, the local policydeciding nodes may decide the local resource allocation policies basedon the collected local information and send the local deciding resultsto the central deciding node which coordinates the local decidingresults. Therefore, the selecting unit may determine the types, amount,objects and transmission times of the interaction information based onthe number of local policy deciding nodes, the distribution thereof inthe communication system, the local area served by each local policydeciding node as well as the functions thereof, the description of whichis not detailed.

The information interaction between apparatuses in the resourcemanagement system and between the nodes of the communication system alsooccupies the system resources. Therefore, resources need to be allocatedfor these. As an example, the interaction information may be consideredas system information, and may be implemented by allocating specificfields in the frame structures. As another example, the interactioninformation may be considered as data information, and may be allocatedwith resources together with the users. As another example, after theresource allocation policy for the nodes is determined, resource blocksmay be allocated for the interaction information based on therequirements on resources and opportunities of the interaction. Theresource allocation may be done by the allocation mechanism controllingapparatus.

The allocation mechanism controlling apparatus may drive the informationdistributing units to update the contents of interaction information.For example, the information distributing units may be actuated toupdate the confirmations, such as types, amount, objects and allocatedresources, etc. of next (or next stage of) interaction information.

The above embodiments and examples are merely illustrative. It should benoted that the disclosure should not be considered as limited to these.

As an example, the steps in the above resource management method and theapparatuses, components and/or units in the above resource managementsystem may be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or anycombination thereof in the main node (for example the base station) ofthe communication system, and may be configured as part of the resourcemanagement equipment of the base station. The way of configuring theapparatuses, components and/or units in the above resource managementsystem by using software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereofis known in the art and is not detailed herein. As another example, theresource management method and/or system according to embodiments of thedisclosure may be implemented in the resource management equipment of anexisting base station, with a modification to the components of theresource management equipment of the existing base station.

As another example, the resource management system may be distributed.For example, the information managing apparatus may be configured in thebase station, or may be distributed among the base station and localpolicy deciding nodes. For another example, the information transformingunit may be implemented in the base station, or may be distributed amongthe base station and local policy deciding nodes. The informationobtained by the local policy deciding nodes is gathered in the basestation. For another example, the allocation policy deciding apparatusmay be implemented in the base station, or may be distributed among thebase station and local policy deciding nodes. The local policy decidingnodes determine the local policies and send them to the base station.The allocation policy deciding apparatus in the base station determinesthe global policy. For another example, the status query apparatus orthe information collecting apparatus may be implemented in the basestation or in other nodes. In summary, the resource management systemand method of the disclosure may be adaptively adjusted based on theactual conditions of the communication system, so that the capability ofthe nodes in the communication system may be fully utilized. Theresource requirements of the primary users are ensured to be met, whileproviding resource utilization opportunity to the secondary user as muchas possible. In this way, the resource utilization rate of the wholesystem is improved.

The present disclosure further provides a program product havingmachine-readable instruction codes which, when being executed, may carryout the methods according to the embodiments.

Accordingly, the storage medium for bearing the program product havingthe machine-readable instruction codes is also included in thedisclosure. The storage medium includes but not limited to a flexibledisk, an optical disc, a magneto-optical disc, a storage card, or amemory stick, or the like.

In the above description, the expressions such as “first”, and “second”are used. It should be noted that these expressions are merely used todistinguish the terms literally, and should not be considered asrepresenting an order thereof or other limitation.

In the above description of the embodiments, features described or shownwith respect to one embodiment may be used in one or more otherembodiments in a similar or same manner, or may be combined with thefeatures of the other embodiments, or may be used to replace thefeatures of the other embodiments.

As used herein, the terms the terms “comprise,” “include,” “have” andany variations thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion,such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a listof elements is not necessarily limited to those elements, but mayinclude other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process,method, article, or apparatus.

Further, in the disclosure the methods are not limited to a processperformed in temporal sequence according to the order described therein,instead, they can be executed in other temporal sequence, or be executedin parallel or separatively. That is, the executing orders describedabove should not be regarded as limiting the method thereto. Inaddition, it should be noted that the steps or apparatuses, componentsor units in the above embodiments or examples may be combined, unifiedor cancelled as required without departing from the scope of thedisclosure. In other words, the disclosure is not limited to the above.For example, the link clustering step S501 in FIG. 5 may be applied tothe embodiment shown in FIG. 3. More particularly, before step S302 orS304 in FIG. 3, the method may further include a link clustering stepwhich is similar to step S501, to cluster the links in the communicationsystem. In this way, the resource management information may be obtainedby acquiring the interference relations between link clusters, theinterference relations between links in each link cluster andinformation of traffic flows in each of the link clusters. As anotherexample, the link clustering step S501 in FIG. 5 may be applied to theembodiment shown FIG. 6-8 to reduce the computation amount of thedeciding process of the resource allocation policy, the description ofwhich is not detailed.

While some embodiments and examples have been disclosed above, it shouldbe noted that these embodiments and examples are only used to illustratethe present disclosure but not to limit the present disclosure. Variousmodifications, improvements and equivalents can be made by those skilledin the art without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.Such modifications, improvements and equivalents should also be regardedas being covered by the protection scope of the present disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A user equipment in a first communication system,comprising: circuitry configured to: receive measurement configurationfrom a communication apparatus; obtain information about communicationresources according to the measurement configuration; performcommunication with the communication apparatus when the informationabout the communication resources fulfills a first detection criterion,wherein the first detection criterion comprises an energy threshold; andreport to the communication apparatus when the information about thecommunication resources fulfills a second detection criterion.
 2. Theuser equipment according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is furtherconfigured to dynamically adjust the first detection criterion accordingto a status of load of the communication system.
 3. The user equipmentaccording to claim 1, wherein the communication apparatus is located ina second communication system, the second communication system having ahigher priority than the first communication system regarding a sharingof a communication resource with the first communication system as longas the sharing does not interfere with an operation of the secondcommunication system.
 4. The user equipment according to claim 3,wherein the information about the communication resources indicatesoccupancy of a communication link where the communication is performed.5. The user equipment according to claim 4, wherein the second detectioncriterion indicates that a channel quality of the communication link ispoor.
 6. A method performed using a user equipment in a firstcommunication system, comprising: receiving measurement configurationfrom a communication apparatus; obtaining information aboutcommunication resources according to the measurement configuration;performing communication with the communication apparatus when theinformation about the communication resources fulfills a first detectioncriterion, wherein the first detection criterion comprises an energythreshold; and reporting to the communication apparatus when theinformation about the communication resources fulfills a seconddetection criterion.
 7. A non-transitory, computer-readable mediumstoring instructions that, when executed using a processor in a userequipment, control the processor to carry out a method comprising:receiving measurement configuration from a communication apparatus;obtaining information about communication resources according to themeasurement configuration; performing communication with thecommunication apparatus when the information about the communicationresources fulfills a first detection criterion, wherein the firstdetection criterion comprises an energy threshold; and reporting to thecommunication apparatus when the information about the communicationresources fulfills a second detection criterion.